


Potential

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-10
Updated: 2012-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-29 07:49:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/317514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow in the last twenty-four hours he's stopped thinking of Matthew Farrell as just another criminal.  The kid's proven himself time and again to be more than… to be <i>more</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Potential

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's community "smallfandomfest", for the prompt 'new territory'

John's mouth is dry as he takes the stairs two at a time, _Woodlawn_ and _Lucy_ playing on a loop in his brain. He has no doubt that Gabriel means every word he says, that even now he's got a couple of goons on the way to Rutgers to snatch his daughter, take her from him. His mind is already going over possible plans of attack as he emerges into the dilapidated kitchen, absently taking in the crusted pans on the stove, the redolent scents of garlic and other un-nameable spices in the air. Landing the chopper virtually on top of the fence means it's a fucking write-off, which means…

"Mrs. Kaludis," he says smoothly, already drawing his shield out of his pocket, "my name is Detective John McClane, and I need to requisition your vehicle on behalf of the NY—"

"Thought your name was Billy."

John grimaces, throws a glance down the stairs where Matt and Freddie's arguing voices can still be vaguely heard. "The kid's got a weird sense of humour," he says. "I need to requisition—"

"I heard you the first time," the woman snaps. She levers herself away from a pasta-laden plate on the small Formica table, sets a weather-beaten novel down next to it and pushes up her glasses while she regards him skeptically. "What makes you think I can afford to just give you my car? Thing might be old as molasses with a clutch that's twice as sticky, but it's the only way I can get to my goddamn bingo."

 _Lucy_. _Woodlawn_. John pinches the bridge of his nose, takes a deep breath. "Think bingo's on hold for a while," he mutters before raising his voice. "I promise you the NYPD will make restitution—"

Mrs. Kaludis snorts.

"It's a matter of natural security—"

"I've heard that before."

"They've got my daughter!" John blurts out.

"Lucy," Mrs. Kaludis says with a short nod. "You could've just said so in the first place."

John blinks.

"I got ears, you know. Eyes, too," she says with a meaningful look toward the dining room. John follows her gaze, blinks again and runs a palm roughly over his head. Where the table should have been there was instead a desk the size of a Buick, and the wall where an oversized hutch would normally display the good china was filled with a bank of computer components that likes of which John could not identify even if he had a gun to his head.

"Close yer mouth, boy, you're drawin' flies," the woman cackles as she shuffles over to one of the monitors. "Tell ya another thing. If Freddie had bypassed the lateral control, he could've had that information you needed about ten seconds quicker. Always takes the long away around, that boy. Can't get it through his thick skull that his parent might know best."

"I hear that," John mutters.

"And the other one? He your son?"

For a moment John flashes confusedly on Jack, traveling somewhere in western Europe for his summer abroad on the Nakatomi tab before he starts his freshman year at UCLA in the fall. Jack, halfway across the world and safe, thank Christ. Then the woman raises an eyebrow and juts her chin toward the basement.

"Matt? No, he's my…"

John shakes his head. Matt is his... what, exactly? Somehow in the last twenty-four hours he's stopped thinking of Matthew Farrell as just another criminal. The kid's proven himself time and again to be more than… to be _more_. With his supersmart brain and his mile-a-minute mouth and that damn hair that always dangling in his eyes, making John want to reach out and push it out of the goddamn way. Matt Farrell is more than John expected. More than he imagined.

More than he can wrap his head around right now.

"Good," Mrs. Kaludis says shortly. " 'Cause the way you look at him, Detective, ain't exactly paternal."

"What?" John breathes out. "Listen, Mrs. Kaludis—"

"Key's hangin' by the door," the woman says, turning and shuffling down the narrow hallway. "And I expect that car returned in the same condition it left," she calls out over her shoulder before she disappears into a back room.

* * *

"I gotta go with him," Matt says.

"What? Are you nuts?"

"No, listen, okay? He's going to—"

"He's going to head to Woodlawn and take on Thomas Gabriel with nothing more than a steely-eyed stare and a badass attitude," Warlock says, "and if that ain't a recipe for disaster, I don't know what is."

"Right, yes, but he needs me to—"

"Needs you to what? Cry like a girl? For fucks sake, the guy is built like a Mack truck! What the fuck are _you_ going to do to help _him_?"

Matt steeples his hands at his face, takes a breath. Remembers sitting at the console at the power centre, hearing the rending grinding scrunch of metal as John crashed the car through the elevator shaft. Remembers the shock of paralysis that gripped him at first, locked his knees in place before he forced himself to move, to head toward the sound. Remembers the crunch of glass under his feet and the coolness of the metal bar in his palms and the taste of bile on his tongue when he saw one of Gabriel's goons aiming his gun down the shaft. He remembers swinging the bar like a club, and the thick, muffled thump it made when it hit the goon's back, and the way everything seemed to slow down when the goon toppled over the edge.

He killed a man. Killed a man that was going to hurt John McClane.

He'd do it again.

But he also remembers the panic that filled his chest when he thought that wasn't going to be enough, that McClane wasn't going to be able to climb out of the dangling car before it came loose of its tentative moorings. He remembers the fear – not that Gabriel was going to win or that the Fire Sale was going to succeed or that the country was going to be in ruins – but the fear that John McClane was going to die before he really got a chance to know him, the fear that he was on the brink of something new and potentially wonderful that would never be able to come to fruition.

He drops his hands.

"I can help," he says simply. "And he doesn't know a thing about computers, you saw that. I can—"

"Oh for fuck's sake, just go up there and stick your tongue down his throat. That's what you want to do anyway!"

"What?" Matt gasps. "No, that's not—what?"

"Just wipe the drool off your goddamn chin before you go, Farrell. Jesus, you think it ain't fucking obvious?"

Matt feels the air whoosh out of his lungs, leans back against the nearest cabinet. "I don't…" he starts weakly.

Warlock sniffs. "You're going to get yourself killed because you've got a goddamn superhero crush on a _cop_ ," he sneers.

Matt scrubs his hands over his face, straightens slowly. He finds his bag and slings it over his shoulder before turning back to face the Warlock. His digital guru. His goddamn digital _god_.

The chickenshit who would have – who did – abandon him just when he needed him most.

"I'm going to go because he needs my help. Because it's the right thing to do," he says. "But you probably wouldn't understand."

He's halfway up the stairs before Warlock speaks.

"This isn't going to work," he says, and Matt's not sure if he means saving Lucy or… or the other thing.

Matt pauses, lifts a shoulder and finds himself grinning. "Well," he says, "I always have liked long odds."


End file.
